Sovereign bond yields in the developed world were generally lower on Thursday.

As some market commentary would have it, traders were speculating that come Friday afternoon Fed Chair Janet Yellen would deliver a dovish message at the Jackson Hole economics symposium which would serve to offset the somewhat more hawkish than expected Fed minutes which came out on Wednesday evening.

The record of the Fed's most recent policy meeting showed that members were becoming increasingly divided over policy, with a growing minority calling for a "relatively prompt move towards reducing policy accommodation".

All of the above more than compensated for the release of a raft of slightly stronger than forecast economic indicators Stateside.

For example, the Federal Reserve bank of Philadelphia's regional manufacturing index - a closely watched leading indicator for the American manufacturing sector - rose to the 28 point mark from the 23.9 level seen in June (consensus: 19.7).

Following the former of those two reports Barclays Research indicated it now sees the balance of risks to its 0.3% quarter-on-quarter estimate for Eurozone GDP growth as tilted "to the downside". Also of interest, the broker now sees euro-area wide inflation dropping to a 0.2% year-on-year pace in September.

Meanwhile, writing in the Financial Times John Plender argued that the bond markets' broader message is that the Eurozone is headed towards Japanese-style deflation, with Italy being the testing ground of whether structural economic reforms can save the day for Europe, or not.

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